


You Could Be Happy

by Bigmurderenergy



Series: The (After) Life of the Party [5]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Past Domestic Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, basically be careful guys, but they want to be, so there's a lot of them trying to work that out too, so very badly, these are not happy men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 15:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20968925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bigmurderenergy/pseuds/Bigmurderenergy
Summary: Eddie and Richie try to make it work. But what does making it work even mean? Eddie recovers and moves on with his life. Richie is just trying to figure out how to deal with finally getting the one thing he always wanted and needed.





	You Could Be Happy

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I made Eddie survive. These poor lambs have been through enough. But that doesn't mean it's easy for them. 
> 
> Today's song is by Snow Patrol because I have the best music taste.

Richie didn’t do anything. He couldn’t.

He drank. He drank more than he ever thought his body could take. Spending the entire first half of the day stumbling through his apartment, emptying his stomach into the belly of his toilet. Grasping for cold water tap to clean the sweat off his skin, the tears.

He masturbated in the shower. He could still feel Eddie’s hands on him. He swallowed some of the warm shower water as he remembered having Eddie right in front of him a day earlier. His hair plastered to his head. Cheeks warm with the steaming water hitting his back. Richie remembered kissing him over and over.

Finally, when his body began to feel normal. When his head stopped pounding through the amount of aspirin he forced down. He started drinking again.

It was a cycle for a couple of days.

Here’s the thing. Richie knew he should be happy. He got what he wanted. More than he ever thought possible. When he realized what he finally had he felt something he hadn’t felt in decades. Maybe something he’d never felt at all. A lightheaded sense of joy. He didn’t cry with sadness, he cried with relief.

Eddie was doing something. Eddie got out of hospital; his perforated lung healed as much as it could in that time. He still wheezed when he talked sometimes. He still had a scar on his cheek from where the knife had gone through. He still had to take as many pain killers as he could without throwing them up just to move.

Eddie eventually left Myra. She was furious, of course. She threw things at him. Vases, plates, tv remotes. None of them hit him so Eddie carried on moving his belongings into boxes and bags. She emptied them out. He couldn’t stop her. He was too weak. She screamed more.

The first thing Eddie saw when he woke up in that hospital bed was a mop of messy brown hair resting against his hip. He could feel the damp splotches of tears through the sheets against his skin. He could feel his breath against his hand as Richie slept soundlessly against him. He was still dressed in that stupid yellow shirt covered in mud and blood. Eddie’s blood.

“The fuck?” Was Eddie’s first words. Richie didn’t hear them. Eddie moved his hand to Richie’s unruly hair, tugging lightly. “Dude, what the fuck?” His throat was raw.

“Eddie?” Richie looked up.

Richie immediately wrapped his arms around Eddie’s neck. The pain was excruciating.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Eddie struggled lightly as his shoulders would allow. There were tubes coming out of his chest. There were patches connected to electronic monitors. The lights were dim. He could barely register it was night outside. The pain his chest was dull but persistent. The pain his cheek was sharp as Richie’s arm brushed against it. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie…” Was all Richie could say over and over. His breath smelt of bourbon. His mouth tasted of it too.

Richie pressed his lips to Eddie’s. It should have been monumental. And to at least one of them it really was. But Eddie was far too confused and stoned on painkillers being pumped into his body which weren’t really working considering how much he could still feel.

He could feel Richie’s lips against his. This was one of the less confusing aspects of this situation. Even in his current state, it made a lot of sense. It felt nice too. Warm, soft. Things Eddie forgot were the sort of thing you’re supposed to feel when you kiss someone.

Richie’s experience of the kiss was addled by lack of sleep, that bourbon he downed to help him get his head down. Also, the fact that he was aware this is not the right way to greet the man who just woke up from a drug induced coma. The man he loves, but still.

Everything smelt like hospital floors and mud. Eddie could barely move due to the tubes, the pain as Richie held his shoulders gently as he pressed his lips to his. Even with all the imperfections, it was still the moment he’d waited his entire life to do.

Worth it? Yeah. Completely. Eddie even looked less agitated than normal when Richie pulled away.

He looked at Richie warmly. “I’m serious dude, what the fuck?” He said with no heat.

Richie cried with relief.

Eddie got out of hospital eventually. He recovered in Maine. Richie stayed with him the entire time. Beverly and Ben dropping in with spare clothes. Ben delivering books to keep Eddie and Richie from getting too bored. Even Mike stopped by before telling them all that he was leaving the state, finally.

Richie arranged an apartment with his manager to be ready for him in New York for when he got out of there. He agreed to do a small tour around the tri-state area, even saying yes, he would be writing his own material. Eddie heard the phone conversation. It was tense. Richie explained that he wanted to be there for Eddie when he recovered, then kissed him on the forehead smoothing his hair back gently.

Eddie went back to Myra when he reached New York.

Richie drives him there. Eddie sleeps most of the journey. Sometimes waking up to Richie singing along to whatever 70s rock track came up on his playlist at that moment. He played Highway to Hell three times in a row getting more hysterical as he got to each chorus. Eddie didn’t have the energy to smack him. Didn’t have the energy to tell him to stop. Just watched in wonderment.

“Why that song? Of all the songs?” Eddie asked.

“Just seemed appropriate.” Richie shrugged after getting his breath back.

“Why the hell would that specific song be appropriate?”

“I dunno. Fun though.” And he smiled widely. Eddie’s heart ached.

Myra was pleased to see him; in the way she’s normally pleased to see Eddie.

“Where _have_ you been!? Disappearing like that on me. No calls! Nothing! Then the next thing I hear you’re in the hospital? Perforated lung? How they hell do you even do that?” Eddie raised his hand to speak, and was succinctly ignored, “I mean you nearly gave me a heart attack! And to be out of state for so long, I thought you were never going to come back! Why would you do that to me!? I mean really, it was low. Low, Eddie. I was so worried. So very worried.” She stroked his hair back. He flinched at her touch. Her fingers brushing against his scarred cheek.

“And what happened to your face? Eddie, what have you done to yourself? I mean, I can’t say I’m surprised you always do something crazy when I’m not around. Not that I was going to travel all the way to Maine with you lying in a hospital bed. You were looked after at least. But I had stuff going on here. My dad fell down the stairs, so I had so much to organise. Your work kept calling too by the way. They are _not _happy with you from what I can tell. But they’re probably just worried like me. I’m so glad you’re home, baby.” She pulled him into a tight hug.

There was a pause as she breathed against his neck. Kissing it softly. Eddie bristled.

“Hi, I’m Richie, by the way.” Richie was still standing awkwardly in the open doorway.

Eddie left Myra two weeks later.

Richie was elated. Relieved and so terribly happy when Eddie turned up outside his door. He kissed him with everything he had. He didn’t stop kissing him that entire night.

Eddie had to arrange some things, which included a new place to live, a new job, a new life.

Richie spent those days drinking himself into a stupor. He couldn’t tell you why. He was happier than he had been in decades. The man he loved survived certain death. Had left his abusive wife. Was trying to carve his own life out for the first time.

Richie was so happy, it sort of circled back round to being sad. At least that’s what his logical brain was saying. His emotional brain centre was just constantly crying. Sometimes in relief, sometimes with happiness, sometimes with an aching sadness that would not disappear until he downed another bottle of vodka.

Richie honestly thought that getting the one thing he wanted his entire life would just cure the alcoholism. Was that naïve? Probably. He sipped at his vodka on the rocks when the door knocked.

Eddie Kaspbrak was in his apartment.

“Are you drunk?” Eddie sniffed.

“Yep.”

“You ok?”

“Also, yep.”

Richie was happy. Eddie was here. Finally, in his arms.

They spent a lot of time exploring each other with touch and their lips. It was slow. Sweet. They removed each other’s clothing with reverence. Eddie’s small gasps and whimpers coming from slight discomfort. His body still aching. His breath still coming out in short bursts as he tried to catch it.

Eddie’s bare chest mottled with scars, the one from Pennywise almost star shaped, angry and red. The drainage scar small and white. Other scars from a life of a variety of abuses that Richie is desperate to ask about but knows he can’t. A set of cigarette burns stretched over his hip bones. Richie’s fingers pressed into them, trying to eradicate them through touch alone.

They spent most of the night holding each other naked on the couch. Eddie’s body still unable to do anything too strenuous so Richie covered him in kisses. Eddie held him close, fingernails leaving long trails on his back, Richie moaned.

They were going to make it work. They spoke at length at how much they wanted that to be the case. What did ‘making it work’ even mean though?

Richie still drank, trying to cut down enough that it didn’t worry Eddie so much. But it was still the first thing he did the moment things got even slightly inconvenient. He hid flasks of alcohol in small cupboards around the apartment. Still downed shots before going on stage.

Eddie started going to therapy to figure out the remnants of his failed marriage. He even admitted that he may have married Myra because she reminded him of his mother. That night he drank with Richie.

Richie still couldn’t fathom how he got what he wanted. That he found the love of his life. Eddie couldn’t believe he was succeeding in having a functional relationship with his childhood friend who was an alcoholic. Also, a famous stand-up comedian. Who talked about their relationship on stage from time to time. Mostly fabrications. Sometimes things he couldn’t say to Eddie directly but could to millions.

The fact Richie spent the first few decades of his life ashamed of who he was and now openly broadcasts it was a huge step. It also took a lot of alcohol and Xanax and cigarettes and Lexapro and screaming in empty rooms to get himself to that point. His manager was furious. His publicist figured out a way to spin it. But at the end of the day Richie was simply trying to be happy in the only way he knew how. By welcoming complete strangers into his personal life.

That came up a lot for Eddie in therapy. The love of the audience being something Richie needed more than the love Eddie could offer. Sometimes. Bad habits are hard to break in the end.

Eddie still struggled to breathe after long walks. He still has issues with taking medication he didn’t need. Still craved Richie’s attention at inopportune times and sometimes even demanded punishment when he felt he did something wrong. Richie never wanted to hurt Eddie, even accidentally. So, the arguments that followed tended to be more emotionally fraught than either were prepared to deal with. They always ended with both drinking and then having sex. Nothing ever resolved but at least if Eddie could give Richie pleasure it would correct his perceived mistakes.

They were making it work. They were doing the best they could.

They both hoped it was enough.


End file.
